04.17.08
The Life Before Her Eyes
(This review has spoilers. Let’s face it, no one is going to see this movie anyway.)
Do you like M. Night Shymalan movies (”no!”), but you really wish that the twist was spoiled RIGHT AWAY? Like IN THE TITLE? Then Vadim Perelman’s The Life Before Her Eyes is the perfect springtime movie for you!
At the beginning of the movie, Evan Rachel Wood is a 16 year old Diana. She is young, ridiculously hot, carefree, rebellious and confused about what direction her life is taking her in. We immediately see her become BFF with Maureen (Eva Amurri) even though Diana is kind of a slut and Maureen is kind of a goody goody (but she has huge tits, so it’s A-OK). Early on - like within the first 10 minutes, I think - the pair is confronted with a crisis: there is a school shooting at their high school and they find themselves face to face with the killer (played with hyperventilating stoicism by Adam Chanler-Berat [don’t people use stage names anymore? jeez]). This is the linchpin of the rest of the story as we’re then taken into the future where Diana lives peacefully with her professor husband and her daughter Emma, teaching art history to high schoolers and trying to keep the pretty, smart ones from being sluts like she was. Peacefully but for the traumatic flashbacks she suffers as well and the paranoid delusions that ultimately get her hit by a Mack truck (or maybe it’s a bus). Yeah, real peaceful.
So the movie proceeds to flip back and forth between the lives of Diana the teenage slut (which involves a lot of choice scenes with Evan Rachel Wood in a bikini [I really hope she was wearing sunscreen because that chick is PALE] and a few not as great scenes where she gets an abortion [surprise!] and proceeds to bleed all over the place]) and Diana the mom who has to meet with the nuns at her daughter’s school because it turns out Emma is “a bit of a handful.” Oh, are there similarities between mother and daughter that the now adult Diana find frustrating but at the same time endearing? That’s so original!
This movie actually isn’t terrible. The cinematography is very pretty, as are the stars. Wood could be compelling without saying a word, not just because of her curves and creamy skin, but mostly because of the way her eyes are bluer than blue (ice blue?) and just about freeze you in your seat. Likewise, Amurri is sweet and just pretty enough as the straight laced Eva. I’d also like to point out here that pregnancy (I assume…or maybe just Pinkberry) has given Uma Thurman the exact right amount of curves. She was always sexy when she was more waifish but now she’s like this - WOMAN. Anyway, it’s good.
One of my main problems with the movie is how it won’t stop beating you over the head with it’s climax. We see Diana and Maureen in the bathroom with the killer no less than FIVE times. Like we’re going to FORGET that scene when the WHOLE FUCKING MOVIE HINGES ON IT. Also, I got a little bored with the “I’m a slut and it’s great but I secretly feel bad about myself because I don’t have a dad and my mom’s a slut too” routine. And I’m glad that I forgot about ERW and Marilyn Manson because I don’t care how hot she is (super hot), that is just wrong.
FilmFemme » Smart People said,
April 20, 2008 at 12:41 pm
[…] Thank god, I was starting to think there would never be another one. Oh, except for the last movie that I reviewed on this site. Anyway. He’s very curmudgeonly. He hates all his students. […]